Nightwise (8 page)

“You sure you up for this, man?” Grinner finally said.

“That all you got for me?” I said. “Not much to go hunting on. Pretty light for twenty grand.”

“Fifty,” Grinner reminded me. “And I'm not done yet, corn pone.

“People like Slorzack find me all the time to erase them from the Net, from life, to make them cease to be, and I charge them plenty for that. From the moment you are born, you are named, marked. A person's true name used to be a secret thing, a sacred thing—it gave someone power over you. Today your true name is your social security number and we hand it out like it was candy at Halloween. So many agencies, so many powers and principalities have dominion over us, Ballard, and we have no clue, man. Credit score, police record, taxes, DMV, online shopping, GPS. We give strangers on the other side of the planet our exact location every time we walk into a fucking Starbucks with our cell phone. We are owned, Ballard, from the day we are born until the day we die. He's out there, and he has chains, just like the rest of us. I've got a few more places to look, a little more voodoo programming to do, before I call it a day.”

“Like what?” I asked. “Where else is there to look?”

“You remember those shared computer projects in the late '90s and early 2000s,” Grinner said. “SETI used them to look for Klingons and shit, and a bunch of other research groups got volunteers from all over the world to let them co-opt their home computers, to boost processing speed to churn the huge amount of data these groups had to mull over.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said. “So?”

“So, some of the beautiful bastards that own everything saw some real potential in that, saw a way to forge another chain. The social media stuff—Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, Tumblr, all that shit—well, they networked them, all of them, into something called an SI, a swarm intelligence. It's a nebulous, churning, cloud-based thing, made up of a population of simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their environment. In this case, us and our social network. There are few rules in a swarm intelligence, no centralized control structure dictating behavior. Local and, to a degree, random interactions between each little cog in the swarm lead to the emergence of intelligent, predictable global behavior, and all of it is unknown to the individual parts of the system. Turns out we're not so special, Laytham. We work on the same level as bacterial growth, ant colonies, flocks of birds, schools of fish. Animals being herded.”

Grinner chucked drily, the way a guy dying of lung cancer might if asked if he was going to quit smoking now. “Herded. Jesus, we did this to ourselves. Stupid bastards, tending their virtual farms and sending out duck-lipped bathroom pictures, building fantasy football leagues and composing one-hundred-forty-character missives on what they had for lunch at Burger King. They are being used to mine data, like slaves, mining the data that shackles them, that defines their lives.”

He shook his head slightly, his tiny eulogy for the human race.

“Is this another pitch for Anomyous?” I said. Grinner flipped me off and went on.

“The good news is that I know how to get into that system, know how to read the patterns, the trends and forecasts. I can read the human race's guts like the fucking Oracle at Delphi. Even if Slorzack managed to erase most of his trail, a rock hitting a pond produces ripples, and I'll trace those back to him by scanning the pond.”

“Big damn pond,” I said. “What if he's in some third world shit hole, no Internet and no online stuff?”

“Don't exist anymore, man,” Grinner said. “If he's on this earth and he has had any human interaction, I'll find him. When Kalahari Bushmen have fucking cell phones, there is no place to hide from me anymore.”

“Damn,” I said. “And they say
I
do black magic.” For some reason, the handcuff keys around Berman's neck jumped into my mind. “You said he was into the Lifestyle. He frequent clubs anywhere?”

“Here in the Apple,” Grinner said, “but it was a long time ago—about ten or eleven years ago. Before me and Christine's time, way before Magdalena's time too. That's like a geological age in the scene. Pretty cold scrap.”

“Is Didgeri still around?” I asked.

Grinner laughed and I smiled.

“Didgeri,” Grinner said. “Yeah, yeah she is. Still owns the Dreamtime too. Hell, yeah, man. If anyone in this town would remember old Slavic Frankenberry, it would be Didgeri.”

I got up and slapped Grinner on the shoulder and started to walk out of the lab.

“'Preciate it,” I said. “I'll tell her you said hello.”

“Screw that. Tell her she still owes me a grand for getting that Korean ghost out of her iPad,” Grinner said as he pulled up a wall of code on the monitor. “Good hunting, hillbilly.”

 

SIX

Magdalena and I took a cab to the West Village. It was a little after nine and a cold drizzle was spitting on the city, not that the city gave a damn. Magdalena pulled her worn leather biker jacket tighter around herself. She was wearing a black-and-red leather corset, tight black jeans, and high-heeled boots. She had on a little black-and-purple-striped knit cap and matching wool scarf to ward off the rain. I wore a beat-up old olive-drab military trench coat I had found in Goodwill in Atlanta fifteen years ago. I had an Adventure Time T-shirt on under a threadbare black sweater, my ripped-up jeans, and my combat boots. I lit up an American Spirit as soon as we got out and paid the cabbie.

“You smoke way too many of those hipster cigarettes,” she said. “Those things are going to kill you.”

“Something's goin' to,” I said. “Might as well be something I enjoy.”

“Better ways to go,” she said.

We walked down the sidewalk past deep wells of shadow. Pale, gaunt faces, smeared in paint to provide the semblance of life, floated up out of the darkness to mumble offers of pleasure and pain to both of us. It's a sad testament to the endurance race that life is that their offers didn't move either of us. It was the same anywhere you went. When you hit low enough, all you had left to sell of any value was your skin and your soul.

We turned the corner and crossed against the light, arriving at the threshold of the Dreamtime. The windows were all blackout tape, and you could feel the thrumming power of the music vibrating through them. A small crowd milled under the tattered awning by the main doors: trannies, club kids, a few slumming B-list celebs. Dirty idling taxis were queued up by the curb, awaiting fares.

“I've heard about this place,” Magdalena said, “but I never made it here before. You told Roman to meet us here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know the lady who owns the joint, and she won't allow any bullshit in her domain.”

At the entrance, I handed the doorman a hundred. He was slender and porcelain, save the vibrant peacock tattoo on the left side of his face and the machine pistol under his white Edwardian coat. Every part of him was bleached except the shimmering color of his tattoo. He unhooked the shabby, frayed velvet rope and gestured for us to pass.

“You actually know Didgeri Doo?” Magdalena said, a wide smile with the warmth of daybreak crossing her face. “She's a legend in alt and fetish modeling. She was one of the only transgender fashion models to make it big in the mainstream. Without her there never would never have been any Malika, no Tula Cossey, no Lea T. Wow. You met her here in New York?”

“No,” I said, opening the door for her. The music, a club mix of “Afterlife,” by Arcade Fire, rolled out into the street. “I met her back in Australia, when she was a skinny little Abo boy named Adoni and got beat nightly by Outback shit kickers for dressing like a girl.”

We walked down a narrow hallway painted black, with strands of white Christmas tree lights adorning the walls. It narrowed, funneled into a vast room. Beams of light and darkness rained down with the music. The dance floor was painted, covered with a rainbow-colored serpent with scales of black light paint. The serpent coiled, slithered, twisted, and glowed across the floor. It was everywhere, and the dancers flowed, moved among its coils. The serpent was the dancers and dancers were the great snake.

“Now,” I said, “she's the queen of the world, holding court.”

Above the glowing, undulating snake-floor, on a stage just in front of the DJ's perch, was a shifting, swirling figure with twin neon-burning poi ropes in her hand, spinning a hypnotic pattern around herself—a cocoon of electronic fire. She had bronze-brown skin shimmering with body glitter, a dress of golden metal mesh, golden knee boots with six-inch heels, platinum hair raining down like Lady Godiva, and eyes the color of clove. I couldn't help but smile. She was a goddess.

“Didgeri-fucking-Doo!” Magdalena said, jumping up and down and tugging on my arm. “Come on, old man, let's dance!”

The music changed, slid, morphed into Sultan and Ned Shepard's “Ordinary People.” I could feel the power flowing through Dreamtime, I knew Didgeri was using that power, was in the middle of a working. I knew I had Roman to deal with and Slorzack and the Illuminati, and, and, and. But in that second, in that moment of heat and sound, with this beautiful girl, so much life and passion shining out of her, I laughed and nodded.

“Okay, let's fucking dance, darlin'.”

And we did. A lot. For the first time I could remember in years—hell, decades—I felt the joy the power could bring, the beating heart of magic, the power of humanity, of release, of emotion not guarded behind a wall of discipline and paranoia. I laughed and I sweated and I danced. And Magdalena was the center of the storm; she moved with fluid grace, navigated the serpent coils flawlessly with instinct and passion, and I felt the power shine off of her, out of her like a geyser from Heaven. In that moment I saw what she was, what she could be.

I looked above the dance floor to the stage, and my eyes and Didgeri's locked. She had sensed it too.

Magdalena and I eventually collapsed in a booth, our clothes soaked. I'd ditched my sweater within ten minutes of starting to thrash about. I bought an ice bucket full of obscenely overpriced bottled water and paid extra to make sure it wasn't dosed with X. Magdalena and I both downed two bottles before either of us could talk.

“You dance pretty good for a seasoned citizen,” Magdalena said, raising her bottle in a toast. I tapped my bottle to hers, smiled, and uttered a quaint vulgarity. We turned to look at the dance floor, and Roman was standing in front of our table, both eyes blackened and tape on his nose. He was damp from the rain outside and had slid one of his hands under his raincoat. His eyes burned with fantasies of payback and petty anger.

“Enjoy your dance, bitch,” Roman shouted over the pounding beat of the music. He started to draw, and I began to rise, but I was tired, sore, and caught completely off guard. I tried to think of a simple ward, anything to stop him, but I had let all my defenses down. Idiot. I suddenly felt a flare of power, like the sun bursting to life from behind storm clouds.

A perfectly manicured hand rested lightly on Roman's shoulder. The skin was slightly darker than the color of cinnamon, and two bracelets of bone and gold clattered as the fingers touched Roman.

“Is everyone having a delightful time, Laytham?” Didgeri Doo asked.

I smiled. “We are now,” I said.

“Absolutely deadly!” Didgeri exclaimed happily. “It is so unlike you to come down here and to let yourself go so completely. I think this lovely creature at your elbow simply must be the cause.”

Roman was frozen; his hand hovered under his coat but did not move. The look of confusion was back, and this time he reminded me of a caged animal. He was trying to move the gun, trying to will his hand, will any part of his body to move, but nothing was happening. Didgeri simply ignored him, removed her hand from his shoulder, and leaned over the table, extending the hand to an awestruck Magdalena.

“Such a pleasure to meet you, dear,” Didgeri said. “Any friend of my balla, Ballard, is welcome here. Especially one that can so thoroughly enchant him to loosen up. The man is a clenched fist with legs. I'm Pangari. You might know me by my working name.”

“I do!” Magdalena said eagerly, shaking her hand.

“She does,” I added, and leaned back to wave at Roman. He looked truly terrified now. I smiled at him. “You look beautiful, Geri. This is Magdalena, she's a fan girl and a model as well. And this very, very unfortunate man is Roman. He's learning impaired.”

Didgeri smiled and leaned in to give Magdalena a kiss on the cheek. She turned to regard Roman, and the smile faded.

“No one brings anger and destruction into my domain,” Didgeri said. Her voice was a steel whisper, and I could hear every icy syllable over the blasting music. I knew Roman could too. A small, brown scorpion scuttled into view on Roman's arm, the one partly concealed under his jacket. Didgeri placed her hand slowly, deliberately on his left shoulder. Roman's eyes were dilated in fear.

“Do you have any idea who you are pissing with you silly, ugly gubba?” she cooed. “You come into my initiated place, my place of power, and try to start something with your silly hunk of dead steel. You might not recognize it anymore; it's crawling up your arm.”

I watched Magdalena's reaction to all this—relief at the protection and the apparent end to Roman's threat before it started. But she was also fascinated and frightened by the show Didgeri was putting on for us. What I didn't see was confusion or panic. It just confirmed what Didgeri and I both had already sensed.

“I am the Goddess Eingana's agency outside the Dreamtime,” Didgeri said softly in Roman's ear. The scorpion was now making its way up Roman's arm and toward his shoulder. “I clutch the Black Sinew, the threads of life and death. Your life or death, Roman. I let go, and you slip into darkness.”